story

It is the early hours of the morning. I am sitting by the side of a flowing stream. Apart from the birds, the rustling leaves, the sound of gently gurgling water and the scratching noise of my pen against paper, there is no other sound. With such silence, the voices inside me become a lot more clear and loud.

Maybe this is why city life is so full of noises? Because we cannot bear to listen what our inner voice is saying?

You know, I was weeping last night. No, don’t worry, I’m all right. It’s just that when I lost dad, being the elder son, I just pushed it all in and stored it away to deal with it later. As I saw the funeral pyre burn, I thought the rites would give me the outlet I require.

But yesterday, I saw a parent bird teach it’s offspring the tricks of survival. I could not control the burst of tears. I thought of all the good times with dad. I thought of all the time I wanted to spend with him, all the things I wanted to say, ‘when I got the time’. But the time, never comes, does it?

We push away our grief to deal with later, and enter the push on and work or push on and party mode. But later never happens, and all our sorrow and longing grows like rust inside.

I don’t want to lose time with you. I want to tell you over and over that I love you. I miss you each step of my journey, and while I am discovering myself with each passing mile, I can’t wait to get back and rediscover you again.

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When Christie came to, she was looking into kind old eyes. She blinked. She knew these eyes.

“Oh, my dear, don’t strain yourself. These men bludgeoned you rather hard on the head, I’m afraid.”

Of course, it was the old caretaker, Mr. Mason. Grannie always sang his praises.

“These bad men have been here when Madam was living, and now they want her treasure now that she is dead. They told me you were ill and I was to nurse you until you came to. It seems that they want you to lead them to Madam’s treasure. Tell me dear, is it true? You know where she kept it?”

“I just had an idea that the clues to the hiding place might be hidden in all the crochet work in the house.. you know how grannie loved to crochet, and that’s when they hit me on the head so bad. But who are these men?”

“Local mafia. But that’s not all. They seem to have tied up with some powerful people, who want to get their hands on this land, thus they tried to get you to sell first. But you did not and they also needed you to tell them where exactly to look. They have tried to locate it themselves but their men have just gotten lost in the vast estate, days without food and water and no way to get back. This land is much more mysterious than it looks, and they have finally realized that”.

“But what is this treasure Grannie keeps talking about in the letter?”

“I only know a bit of gold that can be accessed in some spots with rather deep digging. But what your grandmother meant was something entirely different. Even I do not know what it was, but it was more precious than gold. She would ride off early in the morning, and take a different servant each time and a different route each time. We don’t know what it was or how to find it, only you do.”

“But Mr. Mason, surely, they will kill us once they find what they’re after?”

Well, I can safely assume that the purpose of the first crochet was to let me know that the treasure is in the farm, or at least the way to it is, thought Christie.

Now, the second crochet, proceeding to the second room of the house, is an Afghan square in red and white. Towards the north-east of it, is rather a big knot. This can’t be a mistake, Grannie was simply too good at crochet..

“Mr. Mason, do you have a world map around here?”

“What do you need a world map for?” said one of the thugs.

“You hit me on the head, and it hurts even if I think I little. I don’t want to explain myself to a thick-head. I’m doing what I can to find the treasure. No internet connection in this remote place or I’d just use Google”.

“Here you are Miss, a life sized world map.”

“Oh good, now look up Afghanistan, is Kabul sort of towards the North-east?”

“Yes, it is why?”

“Look at this red knot here, this is not a mistake. On the afghan square crochet, Grannie has faintly traced the borders of Afghanishtan, but they have faded with time, what remains is her highlighting Kabul’s location. Are the coordinates of the place given on the map?”

“Yes, its 34.53 North and 69.16 East.”

Good! Is such a spot possible to locate on the farm? I believe that’s where either the next clue or treasure lies”

“If we measure in hectares no, but if we measured in acres, yes.. but that’s still a very vague and vast area to search, it would take days to dig up that patch, that would be towards the end of the farm, mainly our storage units built on infertile land..”

“Wait, what is common between crochet and land? the one unit which is common to both fabric and land..the yard! Think in yards, does it narrow down then?”

“If I super impose the acre plot you mentioned by the yards.. well then those coordinates would point to the tool-shed”.

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“Lot’s of dingy tools here, no treasure! Are you sure about this girl? The boss will be unhappy if you’ve led us on a wild-goose chase!”

“You can shove the boss..! Never mind!”

“Look here Miss,A crochet pattern under the toolbox!”

“Oh of course! One of the reasons why crochet is used is to save wooden surfaces from straining from tea cups.. and rust!”

“It’s different from the one’s we saw in the house Miss.”

“Yes, its a tunisian pattern, it’s started with a slipknot.. and then a chain, which you then replicate once the foundation row is made.. but there’s nothing, no clue within this one, as far as I know.. so it must be the method.. Mr. Mason, anywhere near hear where there’s ropes, or chain, or some construction work where foundations are laid, anything of that sort at all?”

“Well, there was an excavation site here, just when I came, I used to see all these learned people around. Madam said they were historians. They were laying foundation for big machines, permanent machines that go into the ground. They were looking for something.. But way too many of them died of mysterious deaths, and so, the work was left and the site abandoned. No one ever went back there, and so that’s why it’s all still there – the half-laid foundation, the ropes used to pull out rocks, the chains used in the digging machines.”

“That’s it then! that’s where the treasure is!” thought Christie, but she still didn’t feel it was right. There was a piece of paper with codes in her hand that fell from the box. What was the use of this?

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The thugs grinned as the boss stepped down from the helicopter.

“The pretty-face found it boss! The detector is bleeping! We are positive that those rocks there are where the deposits are and what perhaps the historians and archaeologists were after!

“But wait!” said Christie. She and Mason were tied to a pole at the beginning of the site.

“Yeah right! Wait for you to come up with some funny business to stop us now that we are here! Once me and my men get the deposits, we are killing you and this old bugger, a finishing touch! You just wait here and watch!”

“Listen to me, i think this is not as easy as it looks..I think the area is..”

Just then, there was a loud noise, as bits of human flesh flow everywhere. The noise drowned Christie’s voice, but she said it anyway –

“mined!”

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Christie shifted her weight from one foot to another. It seemed to take an eternity to swallow the meaning of the letter she had in her hand. Her beloved grandma had passed away. She remembered spending lovely and interesting time in childhood at their country home. While growing up, school and career had taken priority, and her parents were not very fond of Grandma Annie, or Grannie, for short.

The reason why the letter was accompanied by a lawyer, was that Grannie had left the country home and the accompanying farm to Christie. Christie told the lawyer that she would be flying down for the funeral and would only then declare what she wanted to do with her inheritance.

Her parents came over to her studio apartment to frown about her decision to ‘waste money going down that village’. Her father was a banker and her mother, a school administrator. Not that the jobs made them so, but Christie always wondered how she could be the daughter of these two dreadfully boring and extremely financial minded (read: stingy) people.

She believed she inherited her creative streak from her Grannie. Grannie did crochet while Christie did modern art. She did not inherit lots of facial features from Grannie, except for the resolute, stubble nose which could scare people with its determination if it had to. It was doing so now.

Her father ventured hesitantly, ‘christie, dear, you are young..’

‘I’m 30 years old, father’

‘Well, yes, but younger to us, aren’t you? I say there’s no weight in this inheritance business. Why fly down to the downtrodden farm? I think you should do what the lawyer says, sell it to his firm. It will fetch you whatever meager price its worth and you can use that to finance a painting exhibition. It’s about time you had a proper launch’.

Christie raised an eyebrow, as if to say, ‘so now you know Art do you?’

Her mother saw this exchange and before a philosophical discussion on the importance of Art emerged, she chipped in, ‘I know the right thing to do would be to go wish mother her ultimate goodbye, but I’m sure she would understand that we are busy, and that to reach her in that obscure land will cause a lot of ticket fare, dear.. the local church have agreed to do the burial, haven’t they?’

‘Yes they have mother. But there are two main reasons why I need to go. Firstly, the trip is paid by the lawyer’s firm, and secondly, along with the paid trip, he was putting additional pressure on me to give up the land. I don’t like it. Something’s fishy. I think I owe it to Grannie to go see the place once and see if everything is OK’

But, dear..

Mom, dad, you don’t think painting is a real career anyway.. what does it matter if I do take a little break then?

The flight was tedious, but the prospect of seeing her childhood home kept Christie energized.

What Christie didn’t know, was that as she excitedly made her way from the airport to the farmhouse, she was being followed.

She walked into the lovely familiar veranda, where along the birch trees was the swing she would play on for hours as a child. As she crossed the rooms full of old wooden furniture and beautiful crochet adorning the wall, she abruptly came to a halt. There was her grandmother, lying on the hearse, lifeless and cold, a couple of neighbours by her side.

She cried. She howled.

After the funeral was over, the local pastor handed her a letter her grandmother had left for her.

“Dear Christie,

I have an inheritance that goes beyond what is easily visible, something that I used sparingly to get by and to finance the causes I believed in. But there are evil eyes on it, even as I die. That is why, although I’m leaving it to you, you’ll have to search for it, using both wit and memory. Have a good look at the house, I’m sure you’ll know what I am talking about.

Yours,

Grannie”

The letter puzzled Christie. She spent some time looking at it, but it was clear that it would say no more. She walked back and forth in the house. She looked at each of the rooms. They were simply furnished, and she knew that there were no trap doors or secret passageways.

What was this inheritance then? Where was it? Where were the clues?

As she pondered over this, she looked at the Granny Square crochet hung over the fireplace. She smiled. Grannie sure was quirky, since the farm was square.. and she was a grandma..

Oh wait! Did that mean..

“The clues to the inheritance are hidden in the crochet!” exclaimed Christie

“Good, because you’ll be telling us exactly where the hell to look!”

Before she could identified the source of the voice, she felt a sharp pain at the back of her head and fell forward with a dull thud.